Poole Town: Killick rues dropped points in Dolphins stalemate

MANAGER Tom Killick expressed his disappointment as Poole Town failed to pierce the rearguard action of 10-man Hungerford at their temporary Cuthbury home.

Defender Will Spetch showed his menacing ability from set pieces and had the best of Dolphins’ chances but the visitors held firm to earn a point.

Killick’s men enjoyed the majority of the possession in the opening period and their best opportunities came within seconds of each other, just short of the break.

Spetch saw his header from Steve Devlin’s corner cleared off the line by Elliot Legg before on-loan striker Justin Bennett’s follow-up clipped the outside of the post.

The Crusaders handed Poole the initiative when defender Matt Day’s lunge on Jon Davies earned him his marching orders from referee Mark Lucir with 38 minutes of the stalemate still to play.

However, Dolphins failed to find a breakthrough and were held to their fourth draw in five league outings with Killick concluding that the dismissal had a negative impact on proceedings.

Discussing Day’s red card Killick told the Daily Echo: “There was only ever going to be one outcome. Twenty years ago, he might have got away with the tackle but that is never going to be the case now.

“We were fortunate there wasn’t an injury arising from it, but that seemed to be the trigger for us to change the way that we played, in a negative way. We resorted to knocking long balls into their box which probably played to their strengths.

“I was disappointed. In the first half we were much the better side and created numerous chances but didn’t take them.

“In the second half, I felt we lacked composure and didn’t show an awful lot of technical ability.”

Although Poole have several games in hand on their promotion rivals, Killick saw the match as a chance missed to close the eight-point gap to the Southern League Premier Division play-off places.

He added: “After so much inactivity and with so many games to catch up on, it was a huge opportunity for us.

“It was brilliant to get the game on at Wimborne when otherwise I think it would have been called off but it was not ideal to effectively play a home game away.

“That said, I still feel we should have had enough about us to win the game.”